


The Way The Desert Remembers The Rain

by redandgold



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Sad!Phil, special appearances by giggsy and butty though they don't say much, this is part of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:43:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4755344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve never met anyone like him. We sort of – fit, d’you know what I mean? Like best friends. He’s a dream. Is that a bit weird, that? Calling Becks a dream?”</p><p>“No,” Phil says honestly, partly because he wants his hero to be happy, partly because he, too, thinks it’s true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way The Desert Remembers The Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Sad!Phil AU (Phil loves Becks, soz Phil, Gaz was there first, soz Gaz, Becks doeSNT CARE). Basically everything is sad and everything hurts. I just wanted to write something that was focused more on Broville's relationship because honestly it's beautiful the way Phil loves Gaz so so so much (don't believe me? Seriously, look at all. of his. tweets.). So it's got a bit of a happy ending I guess even though Becks is lame and breaks everyone's hearts. 
> 
> More explanatory notes at the end!

**i.**

It’s Phil's favourite time of day, walking home. Not that he doesn’t love playing the game – he does, to bits, who wouldn’t? – but home is pea soup. And pasties. And his brother, who he walks home with. (Who, at age seven, in a yard full of Scousers, climbed up the slide of the playground and yelled “I love Man United”, and made him so very much want to be brave like that.)

Gary says, “come on, slowpoke.”

(Who, age eleven, sat in the stands as he played his first ever game for England Schoolboys, and cheered like a mad bastard, grabbing people and screaming “that’s my little brother!”, and not minding one bit that he himself had never been called up.)

It’s not all that far, maybe about twenty minutes’ walk, and neither of them mind all that much, not when you’ve been running all day. Phil is ten and far too aware of social conventions to hold his brother’s hand, but he makes sure to walk close, allowing the steady, reassuring presence of Gary to brush his sleeve.

(Who, age six, was the one who shook his head at him scraping his knees, brought out the plasters and – in the eyes of a four year old, he supposed – saved him.)

Gary’s always got a pack of sweets in his pocket and as they’re trotting up to the door, Phil gives him a puppydogeyes look, that he’s found to be Super Effective whenever he wants something. Gary looks studiously ahead, refusing to acknowledge anything other than his destination.

“Aww, Gaz.”

Gary sniffs and makes a show, as he does every day, of grudgingly digging into his pocket. Carefully he empties the bag of Maltesers into Phil’s eager waiting hands.

 

** ii. **

There’s a new boy arriving, a flash cockney from London, and everyone’s tripping over themselves with excitement to have a look. No one’s seen him at tourneys at the like, only the scouts, but they say he’s wicked, and Phil is scrambling toward the window like all the other kids, pressing his nose against the glass to watch this strange creature. 

His first thought is that he’s too pretty to be a football player. He’s got blond hair a few shades lighter than Phil’s, sort of the colour of those yellow strands of grass you see in the fields sometimes. It’s all flopsy and falling into his eyes, but not in the awkward, poor way of him and Gary; this is London rock, this is the cool kids.

His second thought is that he’s obviously a United fan. Decked out with the stuff; a United tracksuit, United cap, Phil wouldn’t be surprised if he was wearing United underpants, too. His obvious second-and-a-half thought is that Gary’s going to like this lad.

His third thought is that there’s something weird going on that’s making it difficult for him to breathe. Like the air has all caught up in his throat, and he wants to say something, anything to the boy, like a ‘h’lo’ or a ‘what’s your name’, but it won’t come out no matter how hard he shouts. Phil frowns, putting his hand curled up in a fist over his chest.

He looks over at Gary. Gary’s face is oddly inscrutable, odd because usually Phil can tell almost exactly what he’s thinking (makes it easier to press buttons, as it were). He looks at his eyes, because everything about Gary is to be told in his eyes. They’re brown and always intense, always burning, except for when they’re looking at two things: Phil, and Man United. Then they’re soft and kind and make you feel like you’re being enveloped in all the warmth of the world. Just two things. And David Beckham.

 

**iii.**

Someone tells him that’s what happens when two people click. That you don’t have to have known each other for very long, but the moment you see them, you sort of _know_ that you’ve been waiting all your life to meet them. Phil thinks thirteen isn’t very much all-your-life, but Gary and Becks seem to have ignored that bit.

Phil doesn’t mind all that much, except he’s lying and he does. He doesn’t even know why; his breathing problem just amplifies whenever the new boy is around, and there’s not a darn thing he can do to make it better. And everything that used to be okay is now wrong, all wrong.

At first he thinks he hates Becks because he’s taking Gary away from him. Gary’s begun to stay even later than usual, and Phil doesn’t think too much of this because Gary’s that sort, practice and practice until something gives, but Becks is staying back late too. And Gary says, “don’t worry, Philip. I’ll catch up with you at home. Go on first.” And that’s not the way things are supposed to go, are they? They’re supposed to walk home together and Phil is supposed to steal Gary’s sweets and not-hold his hand and feel like a warm blanket and hot chocolate. But now Phil kicks at the pebbles on the road alone.

“I might be staying past dinner today, Philip. I want to work on crossing with Becks. Have you seen him do it? It’s wicked.”

“Don’t bother waiting, Philip. You should go home first. And do your homework! I’ll be home soon. Here, take the Buttons, you can eat them on the way home.”

Eating them isn’t the same as stealing them from your big brother. Phil munches on the chocolate buttons sourly, a pale figure hunched over the pavement.

He looks out of the window one day when he hears the keys jangling in the gate. There’s Gary, and there’s – Becks. Walking beside him where Phil used to be. Where Phil should be – only he doesn’t know which side. Phil swallows and draws the curtains. Now he’s not sure, whether he hates Becks because he’s taking Gary away from him, or whether he hates Gary because he’s taking Becks away.

 

**iv.**

They put him and Gary in the same room for the Galatasaray game, as always. They have a rep, the Neville brothers, of being ridiculously early sleepers, and it’s only sensible to put the lads who sleep at nine sharp together. But Gary doesn’t sleep at nine sharp. Just as Phil’s about to go to bed, he’s standing in the doorway putting on his slippers.

“If anyone asks,” he says, tilting his head at his bed, “I’m here.”

Phil crawls under the covers and draws the duvet up over his head, closes his eyes and tries not to think. If he thinks he’ll start thinking of where Gary went, and he already knows the answer. He’ll start thinking of all the fun they’re having (without him), and all the qualities Gary has that he doesn’t have, brave and smart and strong and the most wonderful person in the universe, and of course Becks would pick that over him. Of course.

It’s past midnight when Gary slips back in, his face all flushed and giggly in the most non-Gary way. Phil knows what’s coming next; it’s happened before and he doesn’t think it’ll stop anytime soon. “He’s so cool,” Gary whispers, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling with a sigh Phil wishes he was the one giving. “I’ve never met anyone like him. We sort of – fit, d’you know what I mean? Like best friends. He’s a dream. Is that a bit weird, that? Calling Becks a dream?”

“No,” Phil says honestly, partly because he wants his hero to be happy, partly because he, too, thinks it’s true.

 

**v.**

Scholesy’s batcave is all dark, but that’s why it’s called the batcave. The telly is on and Match of the Day is running through the Liverpool-Arsenal highlights. Scholesy’s just sat on the edge of the bed, gummies in hand, picking them off one by one without looking at them, glued to the telly as he is. He doesn’t turn when Phil comes in, but he shrugs his shoulder to the left. He always knows these things, does Scholesy. Sees everything without having to look.

“Finally come to talk about it, have you?” he stuffs the words out past his gummy bears, which makes his Oldham accent even harder to understand. For a nineteen-year-old he’s unbelievably small and the gruff voice is even more incongruous.

“What d’you mean?” asks Phil as nonchalantly as he can, reaching over to grab some of the gummies out of Scholesy’s hand. Scholesy snatches his hand away as quick as one of the turns and goals he does on the pitch. He shakes his head.

“None of this for you until you finally talk. Jesus, Phil, it’s been six fucking years. And I thought I was the quiet one.”

Sometimes Phil appreciates Scholesy’s bluntness, but this is one of the times he wants nothing more than to lay a good one into the redhead. “Is it that obvious?” he exhales, leaning back to flop spread-eagled on the bed.

Scholesy flops down next to him. “To everyone with eyes,” he says.

“Gary’s such an idiot,” Phil says, his voice laced with a sudden bitterness he doesn’t at all like. “Gallivanting around like that. Rubbing it in everyone’s faces how happy he is. Becks isn’t much better. I hate him. I hate them both. You’ve no idea how much I hate them, Scholesy.”

“Maybe.” Scholesy’s voice is quiet, all of a sudden. He pauses, and as it is with him, his silences drum into Phil’s ears as loudly as the rushing waves at the seashore. “But don’t you want them to be happy?”

Phil feels the breathlessness again. He thought he’d learnt to keep that down.

“Yes,” he whispers. “All I want is for him to be happy. But couldn’t he have been happy with someone else?” Which he, Phil doesn’t say. With me, Phil doesn’t say.

Scholesy’s voice is flat, thoughtful. “Do you love him?”

Phil swallows. “Yeah,” he says, choking out the words. “Yeah. Of course. He’s the best big brother in the world.” 

 

**vi.**

It’s far too public to miss, that’s what you get when you date a Spice Girl and you’re that pretty wonder boy who keeps scoring amazing goals and one day you’re going to be the pride of all England.  Butty keeps asking for extra dates, and Giggsy likes to brag about it in the clubs. That’s my mate, there. Of course he’s famous too, but not in the same way. None of them are.

Gary is the one who tells him, a cold day in January 1998. He’s got a hard edge in his voice, one that Phil knows (too) well. “Don’t know if you’ve heard,” he says, scrubbing at his boots like there was nothing else at all to be done. “Becks proposed to Victoria last night.”

Phil looks up. Gary doesn’t, still fixated on the gleaming studs of his boots. “That’s amazing!” he forces a chirp, the dutiful happy-go-lucky Mr Nice Guy everyone has come to expect. “I’ll tell him congrats when I catch him later.”

Better to have been trodden on than not at all, he thinks selfishly, just for a little bit, just because he can. He has learnt to catch his breath. Better to have been used then cast aside, better to have been told first of anyone, rather than just being given the smile of _best-friend’s-little-brother_.

Gary grunts. He stands up, puts his boots on the shelf and paces out the door. Phil knows that walk, no presence beside him for warm blankets and hot chocolate, that lonely silhouette kicking up pebbles on the pavement. It’s broken.

 

**vii.**

Scholesy says, “Well, you’ve got him back.”

They’re sat at the side watching training, both with foot strains and the gaffer doesn’t want to risk worsening them. The team is playing five a side and it’s always much harder to tell who’s going to win when Scholesy’s not on either. Becks and Gary are playing on the same team, and Gary’s trying as hard as he can, he always does, but it’s clear as day. The touches have no more of the usual telepathy, the brown eyes are no longer soft with kindness.

Phil says, “I’d rather not have.”

 

**viii.**

There was only ever one way a Victoria and David wedding was going to go, and that was lavish. Phil’s has to buy a brand new suit just for the occasion. Scholesy’s had to buy a suit, much to his extreme annoyance. He tells Phil bluntly he’s going to be using it for his wedding and for everyone else’s weddings for the next ten years, provided he can’t get out of them first. 

There was only ever one best man a David wedding was going to have. Gary pulls at his tie, out of nervousness or something else Phil doesn’t know. His speech cards are in his jacket pocket and his trembling fingers are in another.

“How d’I look,” he asks Phil, half-joking, half not. Once upon another time it would have mattered. Phil nods in approval. Hair neatly combed and patted down, suit ordered by Becks, of course, so out of the only world he knew how to inhabit and so entirely in someone else’s.

They stand at the altar, the two of them, watching the lady in white flow down the aisle. Becks looks at Victoria. He is glowing, the way Gary used to. Gary looks at Becks, who can’t see him. He mouths the words alongside Victoria, to love to obey till death do us part. Phil looks at Gary. He’s not here for love today, not his love.

Gary can be charismatic when he wants to, charming and funny as anything. "I was with David the fateful night he first saw the Spice Girls on telly and said: ‘See that girl who can’t dance or sing? I’m going to marry her’." Everyone howls with laughter and claps their hands, Becks gives an abashed smile, Victoria amused laughter. Only Phil can hear what Gary is actually saying: I was with David.

 

**ix.**

The after-party is like all after-parties. Dark and heavy and loaded with alcohol, leaving all of them stood in an awkward group while all the glamorousness of life revolves around them. Scholesy’s first to leave, of course, mumbling stuff under his breath about never going out with Becks again. Then Giggsy and Butty slip away. Gary retreats to a corner of the bar. Phil watches as he’s accosted by a drunken Becks, laughing and asking for a dance. Gary shakes his head, no.

“Come on,” wheedles Becks. “It’ll be fun.”

_If Gaz doesn’t want to, I will._

Gary gets up, of course. Dragged onto the dance floor, doesn’t at all know what he’s doing, fumbling around like a loose wheel against the silken white shirt of Becks. The last time. He holds Becks’s hand and gives it a squeeze. Then lets go.

_Let’s go._

Phil takes a breath and steps in. For one moment, just one, he allows himself to look at Becks. In the eyes, no qualms, no diversions. This is for him and no one else. Where he doesn’t have to pretend to be happy, just once.

Then he is fine again. He has to be. His brother needs him.

“Let’s go, Gary,” he says gently, taking Gary by the arm and steering him gently out of the wretched, maddening sense of loss. Gary knows it’s against social conventions to hold hands, but he leans into his brother, allowing the steady, reassuring presence to brush his sleeve.

 

**x.**

Gary’s not stupid, and the next day he sits besides Phil on one of the benches outside Old Trafford, the Trinity glittering tall in front of them. “You too, huh,” he says.

There’s no accusation in his voice, or anger, just a pale shadow stretching over a far deeper bond. Phil looks into the brown eyes and nods silently. They’re soft and kind and – sorry. For abandonment and hopelessness and the weight of the world falling apart.

Gary pauses for a beat, stretching it out to what seems like eternity. Then he digs into his pockets and carefully withdraws a packet of Maltesers. “Come on, slowpoke,” he says, grinning as he jerks his head towards the open road and beyond that – home.

It’s Phil’s favourite time of day.

**Author's Note:**

> EXPLANATION TIEMS. Firstly, historical inaccuracies: I don't think Phil played for England schoolboys that early in his life, but I kinda needed it to be that early to fit with the timeline and all. It is however true that Phil played for England schoolboys while Gaz was never called up.  
> Also, I'm not sure if Phil played Galatasaray (the '94 game where Becks scored and the CO92 really established themselves) or if they even shared a room there. They did share rooms a lot though and were super lame.  
> I'm _pretty_ sure you can't walk from Old Trafford to Bury but let's pretend. ._.  
>  I know Phil also got married in '99 but I can't remember whether it was before or after Becks, so that bit with Scholesy and his suit assumes that it's after.
> 
> Secondly, historical accuracies: Becks did propose to Victoria in January 1998.  
> Gaz actually said the 'can't sing or dance' line in his best man speech. I bet it was hilarious I wish there was a recording!  
> Scholesy and Phil really were best friends (there was an interview Gaz did with Giggsy and Giggsy was like 'if you had to sort us out in couples it'd be you (Gaz) and Becks, me and Butty, Phil and Scholesy' or something like that. I'm lazy to dig up the actual article, but it's somewhere there. shh, I'm obsessed, I know).  
> I think it was one of the Co92 (Gaz, maybe?) who said that if you had Scholesy on your five aside team you'd definitely win.
> 
> Finally, ignore the bits with Scholesy if you're here for the angst. He was just there for the comic relief. I'm very sure he only has one suit though SERIOUSLY look it up and his stupid ties are ALWAYS SO SHORT. 
> 
> Finally finally, the title comes from my friend's poem [Drought](http://pprospektsprojects.tumblr.com/post/87363493406/drought-do-not-speak-to-me-of-droughts-i) \- he's a wonderful writer and it's definitely, definitely worth a read :)


End file.
